Love in the Shadows
by Benjamin Barclay Amsden
Summary: Two years since her graduation, Sachiko trys to to keep her husband's indiscretions from tarnishing the combined Ogasawara/Kashiwagi name. Touko, newly in love with fellow rose Noriko, is unprepared for what she will discover as her confidant and spy.
1. Chapter 1

Weaving through the rapidly flowing traffic on her Ducati Streetfighter, Touko thrilled at the feel of Noriko's arms wrapped around her waist. Every time she twisted the throttle and shot the bike through a narrow gap between cars, those arms would tighten and her fellow rose would press up against her back, her quickened breath tickling the nape of her neck. It was heaven, and she couldn't help but manoeuvre the bike more and more recklessly in order to intensify the contact.  
Finding herself held back behind an old sedan, she slid over into the oncoming lane, right in the face of a speeding eighteen wheeler. The multi-ton monstrosity bore down upon them relentlessly, but she held her course long after she had completed the overtake, allowing herself to sink into a fantasy….

Her room was littered with the components of two uniforms; two long pleated skirts were tossed over the back of a chair, two neck scarves lay un-knotted on the floor. A warm spring breeze skimmed in from the garden and kissed her naked body through the thin sheet that covered her and Noriko. They lay spooned together in bed, the hard points of the white rose's nipples pressed against her shoulder blades, her delicate hands tracing a loving path down along her stomach. Touko's abdominal muscles fluttered under the caress and she arched her back, pressing her buttocks back into the silky thighs that cradled her. As soon as Noriko's graceful fingers reached her belly button they rippled out in expanding circles, arching high then dipping lower and lower until they brushed her neatly trimmed little strip of pubic hair.

"Touko,"

Velvet lips nipped at her earlobe and the sound of her name set her blood aflame. The hands continued on down….

"Touko!"

Noriko's voice was panicky and the sonorous boom of the looming truck's air horn came close on its heels. Snapping back to reality, Touko piloted the bike effortlessly back into the correct lane, crossing the dividing line scant seconds before it would have been too late. Her panties were wet under her tight leather trousers and she was wondering if she had heard a little hesitant thrill under her classmate's fear; like the tone of a maiden poised at the bed side, shy yet eager.  
Peeling away down a convenient off ramp, she brought them to a stop on the banks of an inner city river. The late night traffic continued to thunder across the motorway bridge above them and the reflections of neon lights gleamed in the water. Touko tried to find the moon but couldn't. The sublime alchemy of lust and adrenalin was fading from her body and the previously unheeded rigidity of her passenger ushered in a tinge of guilt to her psyche.

As soon as they came to a stop Noriko sprang off the bike and stormed away to stand at the waters edge, her arms crossed tight and her stance defiant. Withdrawing the keys from the ignition and deploying the kick stand, Touko cursed herself for getting carried away. She had been so surprised when Noriko had agreed to go on a date with her, and their dinner had been perfect. Why the hell did she have to go and ruin everything?

Tentatively she came up behind the white rose and placed a hand on her shoulder, only to have it shrugged off violently. The moment seemed to stretch on and on. Touko worried she would never see the end of it; that this was the miscarriage of her heart and from now on she would be alone with its remorseful ghost. When Noriko finally spun around to face her, her jaw was clenched and tears gleamed in the corners of her eyes. The red rose was certain she was about to be slapped.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry…"

Was all she managed to stammer before the lapels of her leather jacket were seized up and hungry lips were crushed against her own. Dropping her hands to Noriko's waist she struggled to stay upright on her suddenly weak knees. Overwhelmed by bewildered relief she gave herself up entirely to the assault of unexpected kisses, gasping in breaths of the cool night air whenever she was allowed. The quiet chimes of her cell phone were completed drowned out by the thundering of her heart.


	2. Chapter 2

My most humble thanks to everybody for adding this story to your favourites, and especially to those who took the time to complete a review. I was really excited about your imput and, as a result, have decided to make this story my main focus and shift some other projects over to the back burner. I've got a clear course worked out for Love in the Shadows (although of course I won't ruin any surprises for you by dropping any hints) but the fine details are all up in the air and I have no idea how long it will run. Once again, really pleased that your coming along for the ride, and I hope you enjoy the chapters to come.

Your's sincerely,  
**Jah**.

* * *

Sachiko made a few notations to the leather bound ledger she had been perusing for the last hour and placed it neatly atop the stack in her out tray. The in tray was finally empty, so she allowed herself the indulgence of postponing any further thought of work; there was always more to be done when one set oneself the task of running a business conglomerate.

Rising from behind her desk, the former Rosa Chinensis began to walk the perimeter of her study, one hand trailing across the spines of the books nestled together in the cases that lined the walls. Her other hand would occasionally float out as she went, seemingly of its own volition, and touch. A marble bust, an antique globe, the sleek modern telescope that waited before the plush drapes; all these felt the light brush of her finger tips as she passed. Anyone intrusive enough to observe would have been struck by the notion that she moved as an amnesiac re acquainting herself with the world.

All of sudden she stopped; her trailing hand had met a familiar binding, the one it had been yearning for all along. Gracefully she drew the album from betwixt its neighbours and sank down upon a nearby chair with it clasped against her chest. It was a relic from her golden age, a memorial to the sweet companionship of Lillian and its Rose Mansion. Parting the covers she turned the pages slowly, savouring the pictures of her friends, petite soeur and grand.

Sachiko's life had progressed much as she had always expected it too; her education completed she had married Kashiwagi Suguru. In her last days at high school she had allowed herself to think that perhaps she would escape that fate, that she would go on to university and explore certain elements of her personality that had begun to make themselves felt, but the death of her father scuppered those plans. In a heart wrenching instant she was halted at the brink, tied down by the familial duty of securing through marriage the power and position of the Ogasawara.

For a moment she lingered on a photo of Sei, looking positively feminine in a sleek green dress, captured cheekily unzipping the back of the matching silk sheathe worn by an unsuspecting Shimako. The Yamayurikai had been her bridesmaids, though none of them had wanted her to go through with the wedding. Yoshino in particular had ranted against the idea incessantly; only restrained from raising her voice when, just before the point of no return, the celebrant had asked everyone to 'speak now or forever hold their peace' by the muffling hand of her cousin Rei.

After she had said yes, and endured the first and final kiss of her marriage, Sachiko had slowly but surely drifted away from them all. The combined Ogasawara and Kashiwagi corporations required strong leadership, and while Suguru could lay claim to the necessary business acumen, he much preferred the ballroom (followed more often then not by the bedroom) to the boardroom. As if covering up her husband's frequent lapses of social judgement would not have been a full time job in and of itself, so single minded was he in his pursuits that she found herself stepping into his vacated position at the helm.

The outreached hands of her friends had had to be ignored; the time she so desperately wanted to spend with them already earmarked for meetings and briefings and responsibility upon responsibility. Youko she still saw frequently, as she had found her way into an internship at the law firm which represented the conglomerate, yet their contact was always confined within the parameters of business. Because they knew each other so well they managed to maintain a level of intimacy beneath the facade of professionalism, but it was not enough; every time she saw her former oneesama she yearned to throw herself into her arms and weep like a child.

With a stifled sob Sachiko came to the final page, a single photo fixed in its centre. The tears that had been building up during her sojourn into the past overflowed. It was the first photo that had ever been taken of her and Yumi together; a serene moment in front of the statue of Maria-sama when she had been fixing the younger girls scarf. The sweet innocence of Yumi's expression made her ache. Her unrequited longing manifested itself as an intense physical pain; never before had she missed anybody so much, not even her father after he passed away. Touko, who as part of the family was often able to take advantage of Sachiko's sporadic and brief instances of free time, kept her informed of Yumi's progress at Lillian University and occasionally smuggled notes between them, but she had not been able to see her former petite soeur in the flesh for far too long.

A polite knock at the door to her study startled her out of her sorrow.

"Yes? What is it?"

She called out, a little hoarsely.

"Pardon the interruption Ogasawara-sama, Matsudaira Touko has arrived."

Sachiko liked that the staff still used her maiden name, it was a welcome reminder of which side they were on in the continuous battle of her marriage. Getting to her feet she smoothed out the creases in her skirt. Touko must have finally got the voice mail she left for her last night; Suguru had made last minute plans to attend a party being held at a luxury hotel in central Tokyo and she needed somebody to keep an eye on him.

"Miss Matsudaira is just parking her motorcycle; as always she did not trust the chauffeurs to do so for her."

The butler continued from the other side of the door, unwilling to enter unless given explicit permission.

"Shall I show her in when she is finished?"

Wiping the last of the tears from her eyes Sachiko opened the door and smiled at him;

"Yes please, and could you have some tea sent up for us also?"

It was time to get back down to business, but it wouldn't hurt to have a little chat with Touko about what her former oneesama was up to at the same time.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm a little disappointed that this chapter took me as long to complete to as it did. I started a new tertiary course this week and picked up a few extra shifts at the deli where I work, but the main delay was the number of revisions and re-writes I ended up having to make before I was satisfied. I hope you all enjoy what I ended up with, I will doubtless be coming back and tweaking it as I continue with the story, but hopefully I will get out the next chapters much more quickly.

**Jah.**

* * *

Unbeknownst to Kashiwagi Suguru, busy hurtling his E-Type Jag' through intersections and pre-empting or ignoring traffic light changes as it suited him, a lone rider was hot on his trail. Touko had been stalking her cousin all the way from the Ogasawara mansion, being careful to keep out of his field of vision the entire time. As the sun sank bellow the horizon and night chewed at the sky, they entered Marunouchi district and began their final approach towards the evening's destination. On their right the Imperial Palace meditated within its extensive gardens and ahead of them the luxury Peninsula Tokyo hotel rose up towards the first tentative stars. A thousand lights twinkled from its windows and tuxedo clad valets stood at attention before its doors.

As Suguru pulled up to the front and unfolded himself from his car, Touko continued on around to the trade entrances at the rear of the building. Beneath her black visored helmet an amused smirk was tugging at the corners of her lips; every time she laid eyes on that Jaguar she had to fight to keep from laughing. It was just so ridiculous! Quite clearly a rolling compensation for male inadequacies she blushed to even contemplate. Still, she reminded herself as she carefully stashed her motorcycle behind some skips at the end of an alley, despite its obvious absurdity, she owed a lot to that car.

Until the day Suguru had bought it, driving with him had always been a slightly nauseating irritation. She hadn't been able to understand the joy he seemed to get from being behind the wheel; his evident glee she assumed had to be due to the fulfilment of a sadistic desire to see his passengers suffer. But riding in the Jag' had been different. Roaring along back country roads with the top down, everything but her mounting exhilaration obliterated by the thundering passage of air breaking against the bonnet and flowing into their slipstream, she had discovered her addiction to speed. After weeks of pleading, Suguru had even taught her to drive in it, and from then on she took it out every chance she got.

Steeling herself for the task at hand, she approached the delivery entrance to the hotel's kitchens and summoned forth the skills that made her the ace of Lillian's drama club. Tonight she was to play the part of a clueless but cute waitress, who would be coddled and sheltered by her fellow wait staff, yet none the less be well positioned to observe the party at which they would be serving.

Part of her felt a little guilty about her activities as Sachiko's spy. For a while she had become quite close to Suguru, their shared passion for driving deepening their relationship into something akin to that shared by siblings. But it hadn't lasted; as soon as she had discovered motorbikes, convertibles just hadn't been enough for her anymore. Clandestinely observing and passing judgement on the life that he now chose to live seemed to her an exacerbation of that initial abandonment. Of course her guilty conscious was glossing over the fact that she had only sought out a greater thrill then the Jag' when her cousin began his shallow, lecherous pursuits, and she could no longer stand to share the car's cockpit with him. In reality she was not doing anything to be ashamed of; there were people, Sachiko for one, who needed to be protected from his misbehaviour. The fact that she could sense that he was also doing great injury to himself and suffering from an intense loneliness by no means excused his transgressions.

Just as she was reaching her hand out to open the door and enter the hotel, a young kitchen hand bustled through it, so focused on getting his bucket of scraps into the skip and then back to peeling and dicing that he didn't even notice he had just about bowled somebody off their feet. Taking a deep breath, Touko sank into the character she had prepared. Opening her eyes vacuously wide and twirling a spiralling strand of hair around her index finger, she cried out in the most sugary tone of voice she could contrive;

"Sumimasen, Chef-sama!"

In response the kitchen hand glanced distractedly over his shoulder and did a double take, nearly dropping the bucket in his surprise. His eyes scanned up and down her body of their own accord, lingering on every slender curve, and a scarlet blush exploded across his face.

"Oh! Umm, hi? I didn't see you there." he stammered awkwardly.

Touko got the impression that he was teetering on the brink of a nose bleed, which suited her purposes perfectly. Bobbing frantically up and down in a purposefully clumsy bow she continued on with her ruse;

"I'm so sorry! Kyoko told me I had to be sure not to get in the way of any of the chefs, but I got off at the wrong station, and then this mean dog chased me, and I tripped over and I got lost and….."

Trailing off at the end of her tirade, she borrowed the look of innocent bewilderment that Yumi so often wore, and waited for him to come rushing to her rescue.

"Kyoko-san? The waitress with the pretty hair?"

Confused by the breathless torrent of explanation that had been unleashed upon him, he was clutching at the one familiar landmark Touko had provided. She nodded shyly.

"Oh, then you must be her replacement, right?"

He sounded a little bit pleased with himself, as if he had just solved a tricky equation his math teacher had made him stand up and answer in front of the class.

"I heard she was off sick; do you know if she's ok?"

Touko found his earnestness rather endearing; it would seem that he had a bit of a crush on Kyoko, although he probably developed a crush on every pretty girl who so much as glanced at him. Teenage boys were hopelessly cute that way. But unfortunately for him, Kyoko, who was not feeling even the slightest bit under the weather, had happily accepted the cash bribe offered her to call in sick that night and gone off on a date with her much older boyfriend. After she lied and told him that Kyoko was at home resting up and should be back to work tomorrow, he gallantly escorted her through the kitchen to see the hostess in charge of the wait staff.

The kitchen was the busiest Touko had ever seen; dozens of chefs were running about, screaming at each other in a mixture of French and Japanese. Huge gouts of flame flared up as pans were tilted to let the liquids inside catch alight and flambé their contents, and massive clouds of steam roiled out from enormous bubbling vats. It was like being in the midst of a battlefield, but instead of the smell of blood and gunpowder the scent of white truffles and saffron seduced her nose. It seemed that a cornucopia of canapés were being pieced together, and she hoped fervently that she might be able to sneak a few as she passed them out to the high society snobs for whom they were intended.

She was quickly remedied of this notion. The hostess to whom she reported, after thanking her escort and receiving an even more intense blush in response, was an intimidating ice queen who obviously took her job far too seriously. After giving Touko a thorough dressing down for being late, she informed her that due to her inexperience she could not be trusted to wield the silver serving trays or interact with the clientele without embarrassing herself and the whole establishment. The job she was assigned was to ferry the drinks orders from the other waitresses to the bar and then bring them back the beverages to return to the guests, and she didn't seem to be at all confident that she could handle even that. The incognito rose started to think that perhaps she had made her alter ego a little bit too ditsy.

After changing into the uniform she was given, which was entirely black and consisted of a tight blouse and trousers, she was put straight to work. Judging by the amount of alcohol she was shuttling between the bar and the ballroom the party was in full swing, but she had yet to spot the ever so aptly dubbed 'Ginkgo Prince' amidst the throng of revellers. The night's festivities were being held to celebrate the merger of two major electronics manufacturers, the larger of which was a subsidiary of the Ogasawara/Kashiwagi business conglomerate. The deal had boosted the conglomerates stock considerably, but the celebration provided an opportunity for its figure head to throw his spanner into the works and possibly bring it crashing back down again. As soon as Touko discovered Suguru's preferred brand of scotch showing up with increasing frequency on the lists she was handed, she began to surreptitiously water down his drinks.

As the night wore on the guests started to trickle away, departing either to the rooms upstairs or being driven back to their mansions by their chauffeurs. There was still no sign of Suguru. When she finally got a chance to take a break, Touko handed her fake ID over to the bartender and ordered an orange cocktail. A blend of 42Bellow vodka imported from New Zealand, brandy and freshly squeezed orange juice, it was what she invariably ordered whenever she was in a position to do so. Taking the first sip she let out a weary sigh. This was turning out to be an exhausting way to spend an evening; she would almost rather have been tackling the lab report that she had due for science class. She made a mental note to persuade Noriko to come over and help her with it; after all, once the white rose was at her house it would be easy enough to lose track of time and trick her into staying the night. Not that trickery would be strictly necessary, but it was getting to be second nature to her.

Finishing the cocktail she spun on the stool to face back towards the ballroom doors, hoping her quarry would show himself sometime soon so that she could go home and get some sleep before school tomorrow. If anybody at Lillian found out that the current Rosa Chinensis drank it would be the biggest scandal since Forest of Thorns was published. Nobody would care that she never allowed herself to come even close to drunk, being unwilling to trade the incredible feeling of the wind in her hair and the tarmac blurring beneath her feet for the messy haze of intoxication. Touko was glad that Tsukato was working for the art department of the local newspaper rather then in business or society sections; it would be just like her to pop up at an inopportune moment and snap an incriminating photo.

Across the lobby a socialite in an extravagant gown, who clearly didn't share her views on moderation, stumbled giggling away from the dregs of the party. A second or two later Suguru did likewise, heading for the private elevator that lead up to the elevator with a beautiful young girl on his arm. It seemed he had managed to charm his way past somebody's better judgement once again. As the elevator doors slide opened and the pair stepped inside, turning around to face back out into the lobby, Touko got a clear view of the girl's features and experienced a shock of recognition. She could hardly believe her eyes; there was just no way that it could be who she though it was. She briefly entertained the idea that she had somehow become drunk from her one drink, or even that it had been spiked with something and she was hallucinating. But there was no doubting it, she would recognise that face anywhere.

Abruptly a wave of nausea engulfed Touko, churning her stomach and making her head spin. She had prepared herself to witness many things tonight, but until a second ago she would have discounted the current situation as the most unlikely possible. Through trembling lips she whispered a single world in incredulous disbelief;

"Oneesama…."


End file.
